Cloud companies Batchbook, Xero join forces

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Wellington-based Xero has buddied up with trendy American cloud software firm Batchbook, creating an informal partnership that the two companies hope will boost each others global sales.

Batchbook has supplied its customer relationship management software to "tens of thousands" of small businesses in the United States and is now targeting other English-speaking countries.

Batchbook's vice-president of marketing, Raymond Bonachea, said: "Part of our partnership is to help them establish their brand and acquire new customers in the US."

Batchbook is one of 150 companies that have integrated their software with Xero. In its case, that lets users import contact details from Xero and quickly check whether they are up-to-date with their payments before making sales calls.

Bonachea said growing collaboration between cloud-computing companies meant small businesses could "level the playing field" with bigger enterprises that could afford expensive business software packages.

Xero's latest customer figures - while on track with financial forecasts - appear to show it will soon need a fresh boost from outside its core markets of Australia and New Zealand if it is to maintain its momentum and make significant progress towards its target of attracting one million paying customers.

The company reported on February 7 that it had signed up 135,000 paying customers, up from the tally of 100,000 announced at its annual meeting on July 26.